King of Infinite Space (were it not that I have bad dreams)
by mosylu
Summary: It was a nightmare. A bad one, but just a nightmare. Right? Or: my reaction to the end of 1x15.


(A/N) Usually I write pretty firmly romantic Cisco/Caitlin, but this was so clearly a friendship story I didn't even try. You can call it pre-relationship if you want.

* * *

"No!"

Caitlin bolted upright in bed, throat raw. "No," she whimpered, clenching her hands in the sheets. "No, no, no, no, no - "

She scrambled for her phone and stabbed the first speed-dial with shaking fingers. "Please," she sobbed as it buzzed in her ear. "Pick up, pick up, pickup pickuppickuppick - "

"Cai'lin?"

"Cisco!"

"What is it?"

"Are you okay?"

"Am_ I _okay?"

"Well, are you?"

"No," he said, and her heart stuttered. "No, I'm not okay, my crazy best friend just woke me up at - " Rustling noises, as if he was rolling over in bed to look at his clock. "Three-thirty in the morning. Ugh. Cait, why?"

She rested her forehead on her knees. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I just - sorry. Go back to sleep."

There was a moment's pause. "Caitlin. What happened?"

"I'm sure it was stress or something."

"Dream?"

"I was in the lab. And you were there. And you." She put her hand to her face and found it damp. "You were on the floor. You were dead, Cisco."

He was silent for several seconds. "That's creepy."

"I know. I know."

"But it was just a dream. I'm here, in my bed, not dead on the floor of the lab."

"I know."

"Want me to come over?"

"No."

"Okay. Want me to stay on the phone?"

"… Yeah."

"Okay."

She listened to their paired breathing for a moment, and then said, "Why?"

"Why'd you have that dream?"

"I thought I was done with them."

Right after the explosion, Caitlin would regularly wake up screaming, convinced that someone (else) was dead in some horrible accident. Her mother, her father, Cisco, Wells, once even her college roommate. Car crashes, lightning strikes, house fires. Her mom and Cisco had talked her through that first round of them, sitting up with her as she trembled, and watching hours of TV with her in the wee hours of the morning.

Stress, her therapist had said, and the shock of Ronnie's death, and Caitlin had thought, _Really? I did one round in the psych unit during my residency and I could have told you that._

But over time the dreams had eased up. Every night had become every week, and then once a month. They had finally disappeared around the time that Barry had woken up and she'd become more than a leftover rattling around Star Labs with Cisco. Strangely enough, when Ronnie had returned, she'd had one more surge of them - with bonus added trauma because Barry and Iris had been included in the body count. But they'd disappeared again, as quickly as they'd come. She'd thought.

Cisco said, "Maybe because the anniversary's coming up?"

"One year," she said. "Are you having dreams too?"

"Not dreams," he said.

"The anxiety attacks?"

"Just one. Just tonight."

"Was it bad?"

"I kind of felt like the dude in _Temple of Doom_. Like someone reached into my chest and was crushing my heart."

"Cisco!"

"It's okay, I handled it."

She sighed. "You need to tell me when these things happen."

"It's okay," he repeated. "I'm all right."

She'd put in her fair share of time sitting with him, coaching him to breathe through the panic. She felt absurdly hurt that he hadn't called her, even though she knew it was hard to do anything when you were in the grips of one.

"What about you? Are you okay now?" he asked.

"Better."

"You know that won't happen, right? Me dropping dead or whatever?"

"It's not the kind of thing you get a choice about, Cisco."

"C'mon, I'm the adorable comic relief. What kind of heartless asshole would kill me?"

She snorted. "Okay, whatever you say."

"Also, I'm a genius inventor, remember?"

"So, you'll invent a time machine and go back in time and change everything?"

"That's the plan."

"How does that work with you being dead and all?"

"Time-traveling ghost, yeaaaah buddy."

"You nut."

He laughed. "Feel better?"

"Some."

"I'm not getting back to sleep, am I?"

"Nope." She should feel bad about this. She didn't. She wanted to hear his voice in her ear until her heart stopped trying to break through the cage of her ribs and the sick greasy panic in her stomach settled.

"Well, all right. Since we're both awake, it's the perfect time to clear out the Netflix queue."

"No," she said quickly. "No _Walking Dead_."

"Whaaaat? C'mon!"

"Hey, I'm the one who woke up screaming, that means I get to pick the show."

"Fine."

"_Jane the Virgin._"

"Caitlin!"

"Please, I know you watch it."

"Racist much? Assuming your Latino friend watches the telenovela."

"Uh, no, astute observer of human nature," she retorted. "Because I totally caught you looking up stills of that scene where she falls in the pool."

"How do you know I wasn't looking for pictures of dripping-wet Rafael?"

"Ha! I knew you watched it."

Although he tried to sound resigned, she could hear the smile in his voice. "Fine. Fire it up."

They coordinated episodes - he was further behind than she was, because he liked binging several at a time and she preferred to keep current - and she brought up the show. The candy colors and gleefully crazy storyline started to leach the tension out of her shoulders and neck. Cisco's yelps and laughter in her ear reminded her, minute by minute, that it had only been a dream.

But not a dream like the others.

All the other times, she had watched as lightning struck, or a pickup truck ran the red, or a gas stove exploded. She'd always played witness to the moment of death and been stuck to the floor, helpless to move or speak, as they died.

But this time, she had walked into the lab and discovered him. It.

The body.

Cisco's body. Cisco with his eyes open, staring out across the floor, his slack face still damp with tears.

She'd been able to move, to fall to her knees, to scrabble for the nonexistent pulse at his neck, to babble his name as she started performing CPR.

And as she did all those useless things, she'd known - she'd _known_ \- that somehow, it was her fault.

FINIS


End file.
